Notes for Unfinished Article or Podcast

There's a myth that without government there would be nothing driving innovation and invention.
Many people believe that government money pumped into universities and corporations drive invention.
This is entirely a myth and should be placed in the same category as the belief that rain-dances control the weather and chicken bones can tell the future.

The State holds back technology.
The State obstructs and opposes humanity.
The State is the enemy of humanity and is the most serious threat to humanity.

The paleolithic era, or early stone age, started about 2.6 million years ago and covers roughly 99% of human technological  development. It was followed by the mesolithic, or middle stone age, and then the neolithic, or new stone age. The neolithic period ended about 2000 BC, when metallurgy went beyond jewelry and included tools and weapons.
These are not hard lines in history. They are all very fuzzy and change by region.

It's critical to understand one statement I slipped in there.
Roughly 99% of human technological development happened during the paleolithic era.
The leap in technology between having no writing, no cloth, no controlled fire, no crafted blades, and no levers; into a world with writing, cloth, controlled fire, pottery, crafted blades, and the understanding of levers is greater than the leap from the stone age to the internet.
Before there was any evidence of the State, neolithic humans had successful surgery and even invasive dentistry. There is evidence for the drilling of human teeth for the purpose of treating cavities, prior to the development of government.

The State didn't appear in history until about 9400 BC at Jericho. There we see a wall and fortified tower with evidence of a garrison, planted squarely on the conjunction of trading routes separating fertile farming cultures and the sea. Then it vanished several times before it finally started to catch-on about 3000 BC.

5 Thoughts on the beginning of the State:
1.
A considerable amount of archeological sites have been found all over the world from prior to 9400 BC and none of them show evidence of the State. Then the next evidence for the State didn’t appear for another 6000 years at Ur or Uruk in ancient Sumer. And what is that evidence? A wall and fortified tower with evidence of a garrison, planted squarely on the conjunction of trading routes separating fertile farming cultures and the sea. Ur or Uruk, like Jericho, was the perfect location for a robber’s roost.
2.
With archeological sites where there is no evidence of the State, every settlement, village, or farm maintained caves, tunnels and dugouts to stash their harvest and keep it safe from pests like bugs, animals, and thieves. Also each settlement, village, or farm grew and traded a variety of crops without any one crop dominating production. But when the State appeared on the scene, stash holes became a place to hide people and farming shifted to the over-production of grain, along with the typical mass graves and signs of war and rebellion that follow the State.
3.
None of the early fortified robber’s roosts or even the walled cities would have had the capacity to hold, sustain, and protect the entire population of the surrounding tax producing communities. In those days the city walls would have only protected the elite and those who directly served them.
4.
If Jericho was a walled, towered garrison for 6000 years before any other State became strong enough to present a challenge, who were the inhabitants of Jericho afraid of? Why would they build a fortified garrison if no other State existed to threaten them?
5.
As James C. Scott argues in his book The Art of Not Being Governed, every early State required two things to exist; an abundant supply of slaves and the over production of grain to feed the slaves.

Considering the above evidence, I conclude the early walled garrisons were built strictly for the protection of the mobsters who both preyed upon and feared the surrounding farm communities. After all, it hardly sounds to me like a stateless free people voluntarily surrendered their sovereignty to a group of strongmen, chiefs, or priests who wisely guided them to civilization. It sounds more likely to me that a Mafia-like group of thugs found it easier to hide behind walls and towers while stealing from the productive class, rather than the life of a highway man. In other words, thugs too dishonest and lazy to be proper highwaymen invented the State, and so it remains today

If Satan had a birth certificate it would say his location of birth was Jericho.
The word satan comes from a very old Hebrew verb meaning to obstruct or oppose. It can also be a noun for "the enemy" or "the accuser", but it's oldest use is as a verb meaning to obstruct.

In the Jordan valley on a mound called Jericho about 9400 BC, a wall and tower guarded the first known State. The Beast died and reanimated at Jericho several times before it popped up on the Euphrates near the Persian Gulf about 3800 BC, within the walls of Ur.
Evil slithered out of the Nile at Aneb-Hetch about 3100 BC.
About the same time that he was being birthed in Egypt, Satan sprang to life in the Indus valley to obstruct and oppose human development in southern Asia.

From about 9400 BC until about 3800 BC, the State only existed at Jericho.
Prior to that the rest of the world was stateless, in a condition of complete anarchy for two and a half million years!
During that time of freedom, humans developed their four primary tools; the hammer, the blade, the lever, and heat. Humans developed intense farming, weaving, cloth, pottery, the updraft kiln, jewelry, money, long distance trade routes, boats, writing, and calendars to predict the seasons and guide planting and harvesting. During that time human population exploded and mankind spread around the globe, unhindered by regulation and unopposed by governments and their laws.

The oldest settlement found in China was Nanzhuangtou. It flourished from 11500 BC to about 11000 BC.
They had pottery, cultivated millet, and protected their village with guard dogs. But they had no government.

Jiahu was a neolithic town in central China.
It lasted from 7000 BC to 5700 BC when it was abandoned due to flooding.
The town housed between 250 and 800 residents.
It was protected by a moat that surrounded the entire town, including the farms.
There was no central temple or stronghold, and there is no evidence of any government.
The skeletons of over 400 individuals have been removed from more than 300 graves and studied.
Since its discovery in 1962, there has been extensive excavations in the area, yet to date no evidence of any armed conflict or any kind of standing army or police has been discovered. There was no government.

They had writing, musical instruments, pottery kilns, basket weaving, spinning looms, and hemp cloth.
They cultivated millet, rice, and had peach orchards.
They had domesticated dogs, chickens, pigs, and cattle.
They developed intensive agriculture in permanent fields.
They used cattle and pig manure on their fields as fertilizer.
They made wine from rice, and mead from honey and hawthorn leaves. They cultivated chrysanthemums and added them to their wine for flavor.

In parallel with Jiahu, the Peiligang culture developed a few hundred years later, further north and east in China with at least 100 towns. Again, no evidence of government.

Before any evidence of government appears in China, silk worm cultivation on mulberry bushes had developed and the silk trade was flourishing.

The first evidence of government in China is from around 3000 BC, about the same as in Mesopotamia, the Nile, and the Indus valleys.

Satan stood up on his hind legs and began spreading his wings about 5000 years ago, and in that short time he now dominates the globe and threatens humanity with extinction.

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Human technological development slowed dramatically at the same time the State was born, and has continued to slow as the State has grown.

Keep in mind, correlation does not imply causation, so just because two things happened at the same time doesn't mean one caused the other. However, this doesn't prove one didn't cause the other.

 repeated glacial cycles

population change

number of humans compared to the number of humans inventing things